📸 PhotoPhoto: Acrocynus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Tanzanian giant tailless whipscorpion
Damon diadema (Tanzanian giant tailless whipscorpion · Tanzanian giant tailless whipscorpion)
Not Evaluated (NE) on the IUCN Red List yet.
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 The adult individuals used in research were caught near the southern Usambara Mountains in Tanzania by local collectors and sold for export, while all the young were born in captivity (paper record). This shows the route by which wild individuals are traded to foreign laboratories and breeding facilities.
- 💡 The captive group in the paper was raised on a generous diet of crickets several times a week. Because the paper notes that putting adults of the same sex into a single enclosure together invariably led to fighting, care is needed when housing them together in captivity.
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
The Tanzanian giant tailless whipscorpion is an arachnid in the order Amblypygi studied from coastal forests and caves in Tanzania and Kenya. The world catalog of Amblypygi lists it from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Yemen.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Its long, outstretched whips (antenniform legs) are a striking feature. In studies, individuals were observed touching and making contact with one another's bodies using these whips.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
In captivity, a rare 'subsocial' habit was confirmed in which mothers, offspring, and siblings stay together until adulthood, with fighting becoming frequent as they reach sexual maturity. Female tailless whipscorpions carry their eggs in a sac beneath the abdomen, and newly hatched young ride on top of the mother's abdomen.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
No direct record connecting this species to Korea has been found.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List: not evaluated (NE) — cross-checked with the Wikidata conservation-status entry
- • catalogueoflife.org — 343C4
- • wikidata.org — Q645337
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Damon diadema 003 L.D.jpg
- • americanarachnology.org — arac-34-2-399.pdf
- • wac.nmbe.ch — 1021
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · CC0 1.0
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.